A Chowzter Balti Mission in Birmingham

To finish off the tales of our recent trip to England, I wanted to tell you about an unexpected culinary adventure that took Mrs Eat Rio and me to Britain’s second most populous city: Birmingham.

A couple of things to quickly say about Birmingham. Firstly, unlike its Alabama namesake, you don’t pronounce the “h” when saying the city’s name (here’s how it’s done – North American visitors: learn this before you arrive to avoid ridicule). Secondly, despite the recent report from satirical news agency Fox News, non-Muslims are very welcome in the city. This is a constant source of relief to the 79% of Birmingham’s residents who are in fact non-Muslim themselves…

It was almost 2 years ago that I first met Jeffrey Merrihue, founder of Chowzter. Before long he had signed me up to curate the Chowzter list for Rio. I also do occasional writing jobs for them and take part in their awards events. Jeffrey is one of those people who is described by many as ‘larger than life’ – full to bursting with ideas and enthusiasm, particularly when it comes to great food from across the world. Jeffrey left his home in the US years ago and today lives in London, so when he heard we were in town he came up with a typically crazy plan. We would go on a Balti Mission to Birmingham.

Balti

For those of you not familiar with balti, this is a type of curry which many believe was invented in Birmingham sometime in the late 1970s. It is generally accompanied with a naan bread instead of rice and is cooked and served in a small wok-like metal dish (also called a balti). The history of the dish is murky and contested, with some people saying that it originated in (and took its name from) Baltistan, a mountainous region of northern Pakistan. Others say that the balti (and the wok-like cooking dish) takes its name from the Urdu and Hindi words for bucket, balti, which in turn comes from the Portuguese word for bucket, balde!

That’s not a bucket! All the same, they say that the Portuguese world ‘balde’ gave rise to the word ‘balti’.

Regardless of its origins, a good balti is delicious and if there’s one place to eat them, it’s a region in Birmingham that has become known as “The Balti Triangle”. Our mission was take the train from London to Birmingham, eat at 4 of the best balti restaurants in 2.5 hours and then make the last train back to London.

Adil’s, quite possibly the birthplace of the balti.

We started the night at Adil’s, credited by many as the restaurant where the balti was actually invented. Although we’d reserved a table, it was a very busy night and so we ended up waiting 20 minutes before being seated. We started to realise that we probably weren’t going to manage 4 restaurants in our 2.5 hour window. Nevertheless, we were still going to give it our best shot! The next couple of hours were a blur of decent curries, pretty forgettable naan breads and plenty of red wine.

Schoolboy error: If you’re trying to eat 4 baltis in 2.5 hours, don’t order any starters. This tandoori chicken leg was pretty tasty though…

Sometimes bigger isn’t better. These huge naan breads were served in all the balti restaurants we visited, but they were all a bit dull and dry.

When we got to Al Frash (our final stop) we asked for a recommendation. The waiter told us to try the chicken and prawn balti. Sounded weird, looked weird, tasted surprisingly good.

We made it to 3 of the 4 balti houses on our list and although there were some pretty tasty dishes (including a bizarre chicken and prawn balti), I don’t think any of us were really blown away. But then that’s the thing about this kind of ‘work’ – sometimes the missions don’t turn up anything mind-blowing, but you have to do the exploration to find that out. If anyone is visiting England and is looking for a truly amazing curry, I would steer them towards Taayyabs in Whitechapel, London.

The lamb chops at Tayyab’s – hard to beat.

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Beer

A trio of British beers with a Belgian thrown in for good measure.

As well as curry, another of my obsessions when I return to Britain is beer. I take every opportunity to indulge in the delicious beers that are available in pretty much every pub and bar in the land. And naturally this turns my thoughts to Brazil. A few years ago I would have been thinking “Why can’t we get nice beer like this in Rio? Why are the decent beers in Brazil so expensive?”.

However, I feel that there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. Just last year, a law was passed giving microbreweries a big tax break, and I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve met quite a few people in the last year who are starting up home brew projects with a view to expand production to a commercial, though still artisanal, scale. A quick look at the number of microbreweries that have been opened in Brazil over the last 25 years shows that things are moving in the right direction.

Seeing as it’s Friday, the subject of beer seems like an appropriate time to stop. If I can, I’m going to publish another quick post later today to tell you about a very exciting project I’m working on which will culminate in a New York City tonight.